The jury was comprised of Canadian poets Julie Bruck, Patrick Lane and Dennis Lee. Said the jury of her work:

“With telling and resonant detail, ‘Great Aunt Unmarried’ evokes the relationship between its speaker and three elderly aunts. ‘We went for a drive in nature. Two of them tied ivory / kerchiefs around their home permanents, while the third / muttered a curse on vanity, and we folded into a sedan ’ The sequence speaks in a deceptively quiet voice, with an assurance which catches the poignancy of these maiden ladies’ lives. Both tender and funny, the poems fulfill Octavio Paz’s demand of poetry - they ‘resurrect presences’.”

Sadiqa de Meijer will receive $6,000 from the Canada Council for the Arts, and her prizewinning poem “Great Aunt Unmarried” will be published in the October edition of enRoute Magazine and on the Canada Writes website. She will also receive a two-week residency at The Banff Centre’s Leighton Artists’ Colony.

Sadiqa's poetry, short stories and essays have appeared in a number of literary journals, as well as in the Best of Canadian Poetry in English series and in the anthology Villanelles. “Great Aunt Unmarried” is a selection from her first poetry manuscript. Born in Amsterdam and raised in various places, she lives with her family in Kingston.

The Grand Prize winners will be celebrated at the International Festival of Authors in Toronto this fall. The public is invited to come hear Sadiqa read from her work as part of an event held during CBC Day at IFOA (Saturday, October 20 at 4 p.m.).